Encyclopedia

PEOPLE: GIACOMO CALIRI

Name: Giacomo Caliri
Nationality: Italy

Giacomo Caliri

Born in 1940, Caliri graduated from the Politecnico di Turin in aerodynamics in 1966. He joined Ferrari and was soon working on sportscar development with the P4 and the P4 CanAm spyder. When Mauro Forghieri decided to leave Ferrari and set up his own business in 1969 Caliri went to work on the 312 sports car programme which proved to be a big success with victories at Sebring in 1970 and won the World Championship in 1972. At the same time he was involved in the F1 programme with Alessandro Colombo and Giorgio Ferrari but this was not a great success. Caliri later became the chief engineer for prototypes at Ferrari before departing in the mid-1970s to establish his own design company with engineer Luigi Marmiroli. They designed the bodywork for the Ferrari 365GT in 1976 and in 1978 were asked by Emerson Fittipaldi to turn his F5 into a ground-effect car. For 1979 Caliri was asked to design the ATS D2.

In 1980 the company was commissioned by Giancarlo Minardi to design the first Minardi F2 chassis and he went into business with Minardi as a shareholder in the team. In 1981 Michele Alboreto gave Minardi its first F2 victory at Misano. Caliri then went on to design the first Minardi and he stayed on with the team until 1988 when he was replaced as technical director by Aldo Costa. Caliri sold his shareholding in the team a few months later.